A Rose for After the Battle
by Do As Eternity
Summary: He is the Lonely God, the Destroyer of Worlds. But just as he thought there was nothing left for him, he found a garden, and the loveliest rose within it. Ninth Doctor introspection, complete.


A/N: I don't own Doctor Who. Like anyone was expecting I did, yeah?

A Rose for After the Battle

By Do as Eternity

* * *

After the dust of the war settled he found himself alone in the midst of nothing. The fires of his home had burned and he managed to escape them without getting physically scalded. The rest of him, however, was not so wholly intact.

He sits now in cascading blue light, fingers intertwined in each other and shielding his eyes from the world, elbows resting on his knees, his legs for once not moving, not running, but stationary. His feet planted firmly on the ground cannot move. The room he inhabits is quiet but for the sound of the gentle singing of one who knows and mourns loss, and sings now to only one man, because there is no one else left to sing to. The words are archaic and the melody is comfortingly anachronistic.

He has grown too used to heartache for idle brooding, so he untangles himself from his bent over posture and stands straight with eyes that are more clouded than the sky before a storm, positioning his hands over controls that move automatically from lever to switch without thought or pause. He doesn't know where he's going, really. Not that it matters. Anywhere will do.

The stars fly past, growing in size and strength before fading into weak points of light in the dark. They moved with such speed, and yet he stands perfectly still while they rain about him. Every one of them will burn out someday he reminds himself, and with that bittersweet thought he is crying inside, because he wants to save them all, and knows he's so powerless to do so. He can only hold onto so many grains of sand before some of them begin to slip between his fingers. And there are far too many that have gotten away from him.

He is of course drawn to the same little planet that he frequents often; a tiny blue marble nestled away in its comfortable section of the galaxy, known to many but hardly ever paid consideration to. It's a place where he can immerse himself into, a world where he can land and immediately get lost in. It's exactly where he wanted to go, and silently he thanks his ship for landing him here. Its song doesn't falter as she issues a reply.

He steps outside into a world of technicolour and green, assaulted by warmth and sunshine, which brings goosebumps to his chilled skin. He is in a park, surrounded with human beings that are laughing and playing, unable and unwilling to notice that a stranger has landed amongst them. He walks over to a bench and sits down, resuming a modified version of the pose he held earlier, with his hands clasped in front of him as he watches two children toss a ball back and forth between each other.

Somewhere, deep inside the cold rational part of his mind he hates them, just a little. He hates that they can live like this, a life of warmth and consistency, and knows that he feels this way because he can never have it for himself. But his hate is consumed by the love he feels for these persevering creatures that show him time and time again what it means to feel human, even when he himself is not one.

He doesn't want to feel human anymore, but he is sure he doesn't want to become the alternative, either.

So many dead, he thinks, standing and walking away from the park back toward the ship that is his home and constant companion. It feels as though he'll never be close to anyone ever again. His skin grows cold again despite the sunlight.

He rounds a bend, frowning to himself, trying to remember if he had really traveled so far away from the TARDIS in his musings. He's wandered away from the main areas of the park and into a less tended place, where the growth was less symmetrical and aesthetic and more natural and wild. There is a small garden growing here, and a bed of blood red roses are bathing in the light above. They're exquisite and velvet to the touch, and he cannot help but reach down and, avoiding the thorns, pluck one from its nest and turn it delicately between his fingers. It's a beautiful flower with brighter petals than its family members, and he keeps it with him as he rights his path and carries on back toward home.

It's colder inside the TARDIS than he originally thought. He carries the flower to his room and places it inside a stasis vase that will preserve it for a few weeks of beauty and returns to the console room to investigate a soft bleating on the computer monitor.

He feels lost and cold, tired and lonely like he always does. But to no one in particular he is grinning as he follows the signal to a little clothing shop in London, all the while believing that there will be nothing there he can bring back with him. There are only the battles, and the running away before the dust can settle at his feet. There aren't anymore roses where he's going.

His ship continues to sing, and just for now, he is the only one who can hear its song.


End file.
